MALAYSIA declared Thursday the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 an accident, clearing the way for the airline to pay compensation to victims’ relatives while the search for the plane goes on.

    The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared March 8 last year, carrying 239 passengers and crew shortly after taking off from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing. Among the passengers were 154 Chinese nationals.

    Months of searches have failed to turn up any trace.

    “We officially declare Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 an accident and that all 239 of the passengers and crew on board are presumed to have lost their lives,” Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said Thursday.

    The announcement is in accordance with standards of annexes 12 and 13 in the International Civil Aviation, said Azharuddin. It will allow families of the passengers to obtain assistance through compensation, he said.

    Malaysia Airlines was ready to proceed immediately with the compensation process to the next-of-kin of the passengers on the flight, he said.

    China called on Malaysia to compensate families.

    “We call on the Malaysian side to honor the promise made when they declared the flight to have been lost and earnestly fulfill their compensation responsibilities,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.

    Since March 8, 2014, China has mobilized massive resources in this unprecedented search operation, including 21 satellites, 19 vessels, 13 aircraft and over 2,500 personnel, and Chinese experts were dispatched to get deeply involved in the investigation, according to Hua.

    International investigators are looking into why the Boeing jet veered thousands of miles off course from its scheduled route before eventually plunging into the Indian Ocean.

    The search in the Indian Ocean is still going on and Malaysia is also conducting a criminal investigation, Azharuddin said.

    “Both investigations are limited by the lack of physical evidence at this time, particularly the flight recorders,” he said.

    “Therefore, at this juncture, there is no evidence to substantiate any speculations as to the cause of the accident.”

    The DCA plans to release an interim report on the investigation into the missing jetliner March 7, a day before the first anniversary of the disappearance, a minister said Wednesday.

    “This declaration is by no means the end,” said Azharuddin, adding that it will continue with the search for the missing plane with assistance from China and Australia.

    Malaysia Airlines’ crisis worsened July 17 when its Flight MH17, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine, with all 298 people on board being killed.

    (SD-Xinhua)